I I don't have many memories, especially from when I was young, but most of what I have has to do with music. And many of them relate to Quincy Jones, who died at the age of 91. His music shaped my childhood.

Michael Jackson was ubiquitous, particularly the music on his stratospheric three albums Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad, all produced by Jones. Jackson transcended racial barriers, but there was also something very black about the way he was celebrated in my household. In these simpler times, before the controversies that marked his later life and legacy, “Michael Jackson is simply incredible” was a constant refrain. At family gatherings in the '90s and '00s, aunts and uncles claimed he “invented” the moonwalk and was the “best-selling musician of all time.” I never thought to check any of it, because mixed with the pride at the time was a deadpan, objective certainty that Jackson cited as one reason we were proud to be black. He seemed to be not just African American, but a black man without boundaries.

A decade later, I realized how great Jones's contribution to these records was. By now I was obsessed with music, living in the liner notes of those seminal albums and imagining myself in the studios with that list of names as they created magic. While Jackson was the face of the music, Jones was the architect. He was instrumental in curating Jackson's transition from a deafening bubblegum pop artist making harmless music to a progressive, sexy disco visionary. Although their relationship was rocky and attracted public attention in gossip magazines and industry circles, their professional creative relationship surpassed all of this.

Jones' influence spanned many aspects of black life – something masterfully portrayed in the 2018 Netflix documentary Quincy. It wasn't just his success that resonated with black people, but also the fact that he was authentic and unashamed of it Origins that were characterized by poverty and racism and one Preference for hedonism (which is evident in the first minutes of the documentary when he promises his actor daughter Rashida Jones that he has stopped drinking). As a young, rebellious and motherless boy from Chicago, he dreamed of becoming a gangster and associated with Malcolm in Turkey, Pakistan and Morocco, siding with giants like Frank Sinatra. There were oddities to be discovered, such as that Quincy was the young producer of Lesley Gore's “It's My Party.”

As R&B, soul, and disco became more popular than jazz, he found a way to become a production powerhouse for Jackson, but also for other artists who were popular with white audiences and at the same time ubiquitous in the black cultural consciousness, such as George Benson and Patti Austin. Music was a soundtrack when we were growing up: be it the black reimagining of The Wizard of Oz, The Wiz, or the film adaptation of Alice Walker's Pulitzer-winning post-Reconstruction saga, The Color Purple. My parents made me watch the groundbreaking music video for “Thriller,” but also the TV show “Roots” (1977), which my father saw as a rite of passage. Jones also provided an extremely moving soundtrack to this hugely popular series.

Millions of words of appreciation will be written this week. But what I will remember Jones is his part in the chaos of my family gatherings, for those secret moments of joy and reflection, for the opportunity he gave my family to enlighten me about one of us – his achievements and all the reasons be proud of it.